The sausage trader cheats ....

The other day I read somewhere a police report against 2 companies making and trading sausages with no Halal certification. Their offense was to wrap the sausages with membranous animal material which comprises, among other things, pork intestines and market the sausages to the general public as though they are fit for Muslims to consume. To Muslims , pork meat is forbidden to eat or even to touch.

The 2 companies mentioned in the report are Syarikat Muller Haus Sausage Sdn Bhd and Pacific Refrigerating Sdn Bhd. Both are located in Selayang. A third party implicated in the offense are the outlets serving or marketing the sausages run by IKEA, in IKEA shopping complex near One Utama Shopping Complex , opposite Taman Tun Ismail. In todays news, IKEA's management has temporarily shutdown their food court in order to cleanse their outlets, utensils, kitchens, etc in co-operation with the relevant authorities and religious bodies.

Food for thought ..

Simon Kennedy at skennedy4@bloomberg.net reports:-

Countries are abandoning the US dollar

Reserve Currency

Central banks are reducing holdings of dollars in favor of the euro, according to a survey of 65 central banks released by the Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc in January. Dollars account for a majority of the world's foreign-exchange reserves, which are holdings of foreign currency by central banks. The dollar share was 63.8 percent at the end of 2003, down from 66.9 percent two years before, according to International Monetary Fund figures released in April last year.

Concern that governments will continue to sell dollar assets has undermined the U.S. currency. The currency fell the most in more than six months against the euro on Feb. 22 after the Bank of Korea said it would buy more non-dollar assets; the bank said the next day that it planned no dollar sales.

The dollar dropped to another two-month low against the euro on March 10 after Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said his country should consider diversifying its currency holdings, the world's largest. Finance Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki later said the government has no plan to shift its reserves.